Deer makes mad dashes through Weymouth liquor store

Thursday

Jul 10, 2014 at 3:19 AMJul 10, 2014 at 7:34 AM

A deer burst through a front window of Quick 6 Liquors on Bridge Street in Weymouth on Tuesday, dashed frantically down the aisles and was trapped inside for several minutes before owner Tarlochan Gidda, a postman and some customers were able to direct it back outside.

By Christian Schiavone and Neal SimpsonThe Patriot Ledger

WEYMOUTH – Tarlochan Gidda has had a few break-ins at his liquor stores over the years, but never like the one that shocked his staff and a few customers Tuesday morning.A deer burst through a front window of Quick 6 Liquors on Bridge Street, dashed frantically down the aisles and was trapped inside for several minutes before Gidda, a postman and some customers were able to direct it back outside.

“It was a crazy day,” Gidda said Wednesday. “We were lucky no one got hurt.”

The deer came crashing through the window at about 11:30 a.m., knocking over a shelf of high-end liquor and trampling about 150 packs of cigarettes, Gidda said. Surprisingly, the deer caused no further damage while running up and down the aisles.

Gidda estimated the damage at a few thousand dollars.

The liquor store posted video from several surveillance cameras showing the deer running across the street, crashing through a pane of glass into an area behind the counter, and heading down an aisle toward a wall of glass refrigerator doors. The deer then bolted back and forth down the aisles as employees, customers and a passing postal carrier tried to shoo it out.

Anne Shore, a store employee, said the postal carrier was eventually able to get the deer out of a corner where it had been trying to get through the glass door of a refrigerator.

“It kept standing on its hind legs trying to get through,” she said. “It figured it was a way out.”

Police searched the area for the deer but didn’t find it.

By Wednesday afternoon, the window had been replaced and the only remnants of what had happened were streaks of blood on the glass door of the walk-in cooler in the back where the deer tried to get in before finding its way back outdoors. Shore said the deer cut itself coming through the window.

It was the second time in less than two months that a deer came crashing into a building on the South Shore.

In May, a deer smashed through the window of a home in Cohasset. It was captured and treated for multiple cuts from the broken glass, but it later died of a stroke brought on by the terror of its ordeal.

Marion Larson, chief of information and education at MassWildlife, said it’s uncommon for deer to get into buildings. After viewing the security camera footage from the Weymouth liquor store, she said it’s likely the deer was crossing Bridge Street, which is also Route 3A, and got distracted by a car and ended up vaulting through the window by accident.

“It was certainly not on a mission to get the latest sale on beer to keep cool in the summer. It was certainly not purposeful,” Larson said. “Accidents happen to everyone, including critters.”

One customer was still shaken up a day later.

Siobhan Gray of Weymouth said she was in the store when the deer got in.

“This huge animal is just going ballistic,” she said Wednesday. “You think wildlife is so beautiful until you’re trapped with one. It was very frightening.”